WAR NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 24 August 1917, Page 2

WAR NEWS.

THE RUSSIAN SITUATION.

PETROGRAD, August 21. The Government has given the Ministers of War and the Interior dictatorial powers. They many arrest and deport anybody suspected of anti-Revolutionary tendencies.

RUSSO-ROUMANIAN . CAMPAIGN.

LONDON, August 22. Wireless Russian official. —We repulsed several enemy attacks on the pistritza river south-westward of Krutche. The enemy slightly advanced in the direction of Ocna.' Fighitng at Staklerie factory continued with varying success. The enemy occupied, after fierce attacks, a small section of trenches in the region of Soveia. ' The Roumanians, counter attack-, ing, re-occupied trenches to the eastward.

RAILWAY STRIKING ILLEGAL.

LONDON, August 22. A proclamtion under the Munitions War Act prohibits railway drivers and firemen striking, and makes it illegal to apply union funds to strike pay.

SHORTER HOURS FOR RAILWAY MEN.

—: ft - - '! 3 • AFTER THE WAR. d - , LONDON, August 22. The President of the Board of Trade met the Society of Railway Engineers and Firemen, and settled the disputes on the basis that the Government pledged themselves to give sympath- 1 etic consideration to a shorter working day immediately after the war, the railway executive to curtail present hours as far as is compatible with war conditions. ‘ .> ’ BOARD OF TRADE’S STATEMENT. LONDON, August 22. The Board of Trade ‘has issued a lengthy statement regarding the crisis which has arisen owing to the threat if Associated Society .of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen to strike immediately for recognition of an, eight hours day. The movement is limited to this organisation, affecting the National Union of Railwaymen, with its 14,000 membership, which recognises this particular movement is intended simply to establish a special privilege for selected grades of railwaymen, not for the benefit of the railwaymen as a whole. The Board of Trade has been unable to concede the eight hours day, and regrets that a small body of railwaymen are apparently determined to break away from the loyal truce hitherto maintained by the railways, but believes the great majority of the railwaymen refuse to take any steps to jeopardise, the successful prosecution of the war.

STRIKES IN CHILI. J

VALPARAISO, August 22. Strikes due to agitators have been raging for a fortnight at the nitrate , ports of Antofogasta, Wejillones, and Iquiqui, which have spread to the nitrate fields. Nitrate shipments have seriously declined despite the Government ’s efforts to counteract the strikes by means of soldiers, sailors and unskilled labcfur.

CABLED LINKED UP.

WELLINGTON, this day. The Eastern' Extension Company have got one cable linked up to Wellington, and will begin business here to-day. The work of the second cable will now begin and the remainder of the staff will be shipped from Wakapuaka to-morrow. The original intention was to make the transfer on Saturday, but the cable steamer is wanted elsewhere, and work had to be pushed on earlier.